Festival films may be only area showing

The sixth Central Mass Jewish Film festival doesn’t open until Saturday, but it already seems to be hitting the right notes.

Earlier this week, advance ticket sales had outpaced total tickets sold last year, said festival organizer Nancy Greenberg. “Hava Nagila (The Movie),” an entertaining and informative documentary about the famous song, is attracting a great deal of interest, she said, but the three other films in the lineup (“Orchestra of Exiles,” “The Other Son” and “Follow Me: The Jonathan Netanyahu Story”) also seem to have caught the attention of movie-goers.

While the series certainly attracts a Jewish audience, “people come because they’re just good films in general,” Goldberg said.

The festival begins at 7:30 p.m. Saturday with a screening of “Hava Nagila (The Movie)” in Remillard Hall in the Ryken Center at St. John’s High School, 378 Main St., Shrewsbury. The opening night event also includes guest speaker Sheryl Shakinovsky, great granddaughter of A.Z. Idelsohn, widely credited as the lyricist for “Hava Nagila,” a musical performance by a duo from the Klezwoods klezmer band, and refreshments. Admission is $18.

Making a gala event out of opening night is a first for the festival, said Goldberg, who is cultural arts director of the Worcester Jewish Community Center. The festival, which began in 2008, is presented by the Worcester JCC and made possible by a grant from the Jewish Federation of Central Massachusetts Inc.

Speaking of firsts, the first-run films at the festival this year represent the first and possibly only time you may see them on a screen in this area, Greenberg said.

“You’re not gonna see these films anywhere else. Maybe Cinema 320, but we don’t usually overlap.” That’s because she talks to Steve Sandberg, director of Cinema 320, which shows independent and foreign films. Indeed, many Cinema 320 regulars attend the Central Mass Jewish Film Festival.

“I love the idea that this is an independent film festival that anyone can come to,” Goldberg said.

•“Orchestra of Exiles” — 7 p.m. Jan. 22, The Willows of Worcester, 101 Barry Road, Worcester; admission $7. This documentary directed by Josh Aronson traces the efforts of celebrated violinist Bronislaw Huberman in rescuing some of the world’s greatest musicians from Nazi Germany. Huberman and the musicians went on to form what would become the Israeli Philharmonic.

•“The Other Son” — 7:30 p.m. Jan. 26, Remillard Hall, St. John’s High School; $12. Drama about an 18-year-old who reports for mandatory service in the Israeli army and finds through a blood test that he is not the son of an Israeli army commander. Instead, he is the son of a Palestinian couple who live on the West Bank. In French, Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles.

•“Follow Me: The Jonathan Netanyahu Story” — 7 p.m. Jan. 27, Remillard Hall, St. John’s High School; admission $12. Biography exploring the life of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s older brother, an elite army commando who was killed during the operation that rescued 103 Israeli hostages from a hijacked flight at Uganda’s Entebbe Airport in 1976.